Google's Allo: A disaster, hardly a threat to WhatsApp

Google is one of the world's top tech companies. But in the last one decade or so, the company has bungled in two core areas.

It failed to get the social media quotient right even as Facebook surged, and of late, it missed the bus on messaging, another area where Facebook leads through WhatsApp.

For Google, its social media efforts are beyond redemption. The Google Plus is a disaster. But messaging is something that it can still get right. Sadly with Allo, the new Google app for instant messaging, it doesn't.

Allo is not bad. It is fun and simple to use. It has a good design and it has cool features like stickers. It is also quite smart.

There is a virtual assistant inside Allo, which is always there at your call. You can ask it to tell you jokes or the score of the latest cricket match.

But the problem with Allo is that it is too similar to WhatsApp for all intents and purposes. And while that is a good thing - WhatsApp is a nice app - the issue is that it makes Google a follower.

There is not enough new in Allo to entice users, who all are on WhatsApp and who have little incentive to move to a new app where they will have to relearn a few things and find their friends again.

It is also sad because Allo really could have made a difference. Its core experience is good, just like WhatsApp's. The problem is its missing feature set.

Allo will work with only one phone. It has no web client, which is surprising because Google is a company synonymous with the web. This means you can't chat on Allo if you are using a computer.

Even WhatsApp gives users a way out. Allo is missing the call functionality or ability to share files that are not video or images and so many other features.

It's true that these are the features that even WhatsApp was, and in some cases still is, missing. But then WhatsApp didn't have to compete so hard.

Allo has to take on WhatsApp and that it could have done only by being different, more feature-rich and useful. For now it doesn't and that may doom Google's attempt to get into instant messaging. Again.

(Courtesy of Mail Today.)